The Agonie -Divine love in George Herbert.

I'm attending a set of seminars led by Philip Sheldrake of Durham University called "Self and Transformation" about Christian spirituality in relation to those to words. It's a historically informed approach an we will shortly be looking at the work of George Herbert.

I have to confess that I am clearly a philistine in that I found Herbert's poetry very hard to get into at first. I think because the usual metre is one I associate with dogrell and because I was reading it in large chunks and so the constant pounding of the rhythm was starting to wear me down. Now however, I confess that I am getting into it. The wordplay, the allusions, the artful phrasing and the theology. I found myself reflecting on this couple of lines on Tuesday night as I took communion at college.

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine
which my God feels as bloud; but I as wine,

I love the way that two points seperated in time and space are brought together as being expressions of the same thing. It resonates with the kinds of understandings I have been coming to about God and atonement and Eucharist.
Ah, it seems that I am an Anglican after all.
George Herbert. The Agonie.:
Filed in: George_Herbert, Christian, poetry, Anglican, spirituality, Eucharist